Retro-cycles are now a normal part of pop culture and have been for sometime. It is well documented that it's traced to the emergence of 1950's youth culture and their post WWII expendable income. You wait 20 years and there it is again. Lately Tupac and Kurt Cobian are commonplace, but you see that already.

"Rapper's Delight" was the song for which Sugar Hill Gang became famous and it featured one of the first examples of sampling (Chic's "Good Times" threaded though the track) that was also a harbinger of the appropriation frenzy that would infect the art world at the same time.

It is the presence of strong women in the Broadway musical, Holler If Ya Hear Me that attracted Saycon Sengbloh to be part of the cast and serves as a reminder of one usually overlooked facet of Tupac Shakur's enduring legacy: his female empowerment anthems.

There was only moderate hollerin' from the audience at the Monday night preview of Holler If Ya Hear Me, the Tupac Shakur jukebox musical at the drastically altered Palace. We could hear them, yes, and loudly; but we couldn't make out much of what they were singing or saying.

While Holler if Ya Hear Me, the new musical featuring the songs of Tupac Shakur, has strong performances by Broadway vets, I found the work of Broadway newbies Joshua Boone and Dyllon Burnside equally as impressive.